soliciting her custom, and the cask contained actual samples of various articles in the grocery line; but underneath these were really valuable things, a handsome table-lamp, &c. The most curious of these Jul-klapper was that which one of the young ladies, who eked out her slender portion by teaching music in a private manner, received-a pasteboard guitar, which I, in my ignorance, thought a mockery on her praiseworthy labours; but she took a pair of scissors her sister had just received, and, cutting up the guitar, discovered, with a quiet smile of satisfaction, that notes of value (bank-notes) could be drawn even from a pasteboard guitar.

I got a pair of sugar figures made by an old lady of nearly ninety, who had in her girlhood been maid-of-honour to the sister of the famous Gustavus III., who was murdered by Ankerström. These figures, the clever old lady said, were to represent two `droll characters which had amused her in one of my books.

While all this was going on, I could not help letting my own thoughts wander far, far way; letting them wander to more quiet Christmas-eves, to joyous Christmas-days. I thought of the gifts of affection, given with affection's kiss, directly to the object of affection; I thought of the dear words which dwell silently in the heart when they cease to be uttered by the lips, which make it bleed when the same season comes round and round, and brings them in the same dear voices no more A happy Christmas!”

66

Well! we celebrate His birth who came to abolish death, and bring life and immortality to light.

This anonymous distribution of gifts is amusing, and the quantity of money spent in this way is amazing; but here it is very businesslike, and gives one the notion of value received to be accredited by one friend to another.

Supper followed. This is really the Jul-afton; for “afton" means supper as well as evening, both words being combined in the Swedish language as well as in most Swedish imaginations. I wished to see the celebrated gröt, the Christmas dish of the Swedish nation; the lut fish, however, came first, a most disgusting object its smell was enough. I bowed to it at a distance. Then the gröt was handed, for in Sweden, as in France and Germany, dishes are not usually placed on the table. It is simple rice; a jug of cold milk, and the invariable accompaniment of meals, a basin of pounded white sugar, was presented with it.

When our Jul-afton was over, we all rose up in our places, and silently said each a grace, then made a low courtesy or bow to our hostess, and the same to the host, who both courtsied and bowed

you

for

to us in return; our solicitations meant to express, "I thank our food;" and theirs to reply, "I thank you for your good company." And when the parties meet again, the guests have always to repeat their thanks for a previous entertainment; a custom which, if practised in England, would almost look like a hint that you wished to be invited again. After meals in this country children generally kiss their parents' hands, and thank them. I withdrew soon afterwards to my own rooms, to quiet, silence, and star and snow-gazing. The heat of these air-tight rooms, the clear, whitish light of the bright nights, often drew me from my sofa-bed to the windows, to gaze out on the singular and striking scene, until the uncommon chill that follows such an exploit in this northern clime sends me back to feel again the extreme warmth of massive walls, double windows, hermetically closed, and stove-heated rooms.

My good Swede had said he would come for me at six o'clock on Christmas-morn: the wish to be ready in time kept me still more wakeful than usual, and on this night, on which, eighteen hundred and fifty-four years ago, a clearer light had shone around other watchers, when glory to God and goodwill to men were chanted along another sky; sleep fled my eyes, and though no fire had been made for several days, except in the room adjoining the one I used for my sleeping-apartment, the close warmth made me rise up from time to time to find refreshment at the window.

It was nothing like the plains of Bethlehem at which I looked out. Before my window lies a large open place called Carl-tretonstorg, or the square of Charles XIII.; it is bounded by headless trees at each side; at its end can be seen the royal palace, the junction of the waters of the Baltic, and Lake Mälar, and the lofty, irregular heights of Todermalm in the distance, up which houses climb in every position, with their thousand lights glittering and twinkling in the snowy scene and strong, frosty air. In summer this same scene, flashing in the golden sun of evening, is wonderfully beautiful, but in winter it surpasses, in curious magnificence, anything I have seen in any capital. Around lies an unbroken surface of white; the snow is frozen hard and glitters like crystal. The plain immediately below the windows is broken only by the tall, ugly statue of Carl XIII.; the statue is guarded by a sentinel, who, crippled with cold, is moving beside it; a semicircle of lights bounds this open place; a flickering, streaming light flits over the snowy ground from a moving lantern. The large moon hangs midway in the pure, cold air, looking over the

scene, and the large stars above it seem to open their eyes very widely, gazing down on the snow-covered earth.

This Christmas-night is unlike any I ever passed. Its eve was not spent in a very religious manner, yet never have thoughts of the event we celebrate, the event which angels wonder at, and men, alas! so often overlook-the advent of the Redeemer-so deeply filled my mind or penetrated my soul.

From time to time I rose, and till the cold felt to strike to the very bones I looked forth and saw the artificial lights die out, as house after house closed up and ended their merry Jul-afton, and the streaming light of the lanterns hurrying along ceased to gleam on the ice-hard snow; and then the lights of Heaven shone alone, and far away as the eye could reach all was purely white and glittering, and the moon and the stars held rule over all, and the icicled trees shone like diamonds beneath them.

So ended my Yule-eve in Sweden. Now must I pass on to my Christmas-morn, my Jul-dag, or Yule-day.

HISTORY OF PRINTING.-No. V.

IN 1483 there were only four printers in England-Caxton, at Westminster; Roode and Hunt, at Oxford; De Machlinia, in London; and a fourth, name unknown, at St. Albans. De Machlinia, it has been said, printed in England even before Caxton. The unknown printer at St. Albans may have been Corsellis, or his successor, since Atkins says that the printing-press set up at Oxford was removed thither for the sake of convenience. Caxton seems, however, to have been the greatest printer of his time. He produced no less than 62 books; ten of them related to theology, and the remainder to chivalry, plain and romantic history, and manners and customs. The printing of the Bible, which occupied the foreign printers so generally, was, at this period, forbidden in England. Caxton deserves respect not only as a printer, but as an author. He worked with his pen as well as with his types; translating from the French many books, and thus spreading new ideas amongst his countrymen. He was apparently an honest and modest man, a character which he preserved until the end of his life, though the novelty of his art brought the temptations of high patronage and of riches. Kings and nobles were amongst his employers; and it has been asserted that, as the King's sworn servant, he paid a share of the profits of the art to His Majesty.

Caxton died about the year 1491. He was succeeded in his business by Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynsent. The first, who had accompanied Caxton from Cologne, was a most accomplished man, and he excelled his master in the art. He introduced the Roman letter into England, and the shape of his types was retained by the printers for two centuries afterwards. The punches and matrices he used in casting his types were in existence as late as 1758. The art grew famous in England as years rolled on; and to encourage it, extraordinary privileges were conferred upon printers. Thus Richard III. interdicted foreigners from using any handicraft in England, except as servants to natives, but he expressly excepted printing. This privilege was, however, taken away by Henry VIII. because it had become unnecessary, the English having outstripped their foreign competitors in excellence. Yet, as printing became cheaper, it did not become better. It retrograded, rather than improved, as it should, with the progress of time. But strange as the fact appears it may be very naturally explained.

TYPE-FOUNDERS.

Anciently a printer was what we should now call a "Jack of all trades." Just as the weaver made his own loom and shuttle, so the printer cut the punches, formed the matrices, and cast the type himself. But this system was terminated by law. In the year 1637 the Star Chamber decreed that there should be no more than four founders of letters at one time in England, and that the vacancies, as they occurred, should be filled up, either by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Bishop of London, and six other high Commissioners. The object of the Star Chamber was to prevent the secret printing of sedition. But though the restriction may have served this purpose, it retarded the improvement of printing. The printers, being debarred from casting type for themselves, imported it from Holland. The Dutch type, too, was the best made. For whilst the four English type-founders, working entirely by the eye and the hand, and guessing the proportions of the letters, had done little or nothing to improve the shape, the numerous Dutch type-founders, emulating each other, had carried type-founding to a high state of perfection. Moxon, the author of a work called Mechanic Exercises, published in 1667, tells us that having magnified some very small Dutch letters by means of a glass, he was astonished to witness their beautiful proportions. The thickness, shape, and every other feature, he says, were as

true as if they had been set off by a pair of fairy-like compasses. But no sooner was the decree of the Star Chamber repealed in 1693, than type-founding began to make progress in England. William Caslon was the first person who became eminent in the art. About the year 1700, Caslon was employed in cutting letters and ornaments used by bookbinders, and in engraving on gunbarrels. He had executed some punches for lettering the backs of books so beautifully that he was encouraged by Mr. Watts, an eminent printer, to attempt cutting punches for type-founding; and he was first employed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for which he executed a beautiful Italic fount in 1722. Caslon grew even more expert as he gained experience; and the result was, that the tide turned in the art of type-founding; for instead of type being imported into England from Holland, it was exported from England to Holland.

In 1750 John Baskerville greatly improved the art of typefounding. Baskerville was a man of active mind and versatile talents, at one time following the vocation of a schoolmaster, at another that of a japanner, and lastly that of a type-founder and printer. Thousands of pounds which he acquired by japanning were exhausted by his experiments in printing. He had so much difficulty in pleasing himself, that he spent 600% before he had cast a single letter to his taste. He manufactured his own presses, ink, paper, and, in truth, the whole of the apparatus used in the trade. His printing was very beautiful, the letters being of slender and delicate form. The Italic letters which he cast are distinguished beyond all comparison by their elegance, freedom, and perfect symmetry; and the books printed by him possess even at this day a high value throughout Europe, for accuracy as well as for typographical beauty. Indeed, so elegant were his types, that in 1791 four years after his death, a literary society at Paris purchased them for 3,7007. Yet so little taste existed during Baskerville's lifetime for good printing, that he could not get employment. The booksellers preferred the wretched printing that was then common, although Baskerville offered his beautiful work for an advance of five per cent on the ordinary prices. No wonder, then, that he declared himself heartily tired of the business of printing, and that he repented ever entering into it. "Is it not to the last degree provoking," he wrote to Dr. Franklin, "that after having obtained the reputation of excelling in the most useful art known to mankind, I cannot get even bread by it?" Baskerville, we may add, was very eccentric. Each panel of his carriage was